


ten years' legend, split second victory

by cuvier (orphan_account)



Category: SHINee
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:09:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/cuvier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>minho joins dream team ... permanently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ten years' legend, split second victory

“Onew-hyung,” Minho announces solemnly one morning. “I’m going to join Dream Team permanently.”

“Don’t you already have a permanent spot on Dream Team?” Taemin asks between the mouthfuls of breakfast that Kibum is busy feeding him.

“Um,” Minho says.

The doorbell rings at just the right moment. The members (sans Minho) exchange several nervous glances – Kibum is still holding his spoon in mid-air – before Jinki gets up cautiously from the table and looks through the peephole. Finally, with the air of a man accepting the inevitable, he opens the door, and several Dream Team regular cast members storm into the apartment.

“Yo, bro!” Sangchu yells as he comes through the door, giving Jinki an enthusiastic high-five. “What’s up?”

“Yo?” Jinki attempts weakly.

“Minho ah, good to see you again,” Lee Chang Myung says, patting Minho on the shoulder like a proud uncle would a nephew. “Are your bags packed?” Minho nods. Lee Sang-in and Danny Ahn promptly march into Minho’s room and retrieve two bulging suitcases, which Minho had obviously managed to stow out of view.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Jonghyun interjects. “Hidden camera, or something?”

Song Joongki sits down at the dining table without even asking, and helps himself to the scrambled eggs. “You’ve got a nice place here,” he says. “I thought idols usually lived in small, cramped areas with absolutely no concept of privacy. Hey, these eggs are really good, who cooked them?”

“You know, I never liked his girly face,” Kibum tells Taemin in a very loud stage whisper.

 

 

 

“As you may have already come to know,” their manager explains later, after Jinki gives him a frantic phone call (dialling the wrong number twice in the process), “Minho is part of a new initiative to promote Dream Team to a larger audience. This is an exclusive contract that the company has entered into with KBS and several other management companies, so we’ve got no choice but to see how it works out. The plan right now is to hold promotional activities for at least two months or so, during which the four of you will carry on with the group’s activities as scheduled.”

“I knew he liked Dream Team more than he liked us,” Jonghyun mumbles to himself.

“So this is temporary, right?” Taemin quips.

Their manager sighs. “It might or might not be, depending on the reception.”

The fans are taking it surprisingly well, which is totally worrying. There has been no backlash at all, and over the next few days all sorts of encouraging messages are sent to them, like “Minho-oppa hwaiting!! With Dream Team ^^” and “We’ll all be cheering Minho on, right?~” And Jinki’s personal favourite, just because it radiates an alarming amount of sheer positivity: “No worries!!! Minho will be back soon!!!!! All of you are still noona’s shining SHINee~~”, from a Miss Kim Soo-na (29), who hails from Incheon.

“That’s rich,” says Jonghyun, reading from the monitor over Jinki’s shoulder.

“Stop being a bitch, Jjong,” Kibum calls out from where he is piling Minho’s old bedclothes into a large bag labelled “Donations”.

 

 

 

They first watch Dream Team’s performance as a band – a _band_ , Kibum thinks – about three weeks after Minho’s dreadful announcement, which makes Kibum wonder for how long exactly all of them were kept in the dark. They’re having dinner in their apartment on a blissfully schedule-free day when they hear Minho’s voice come on over the television. Taemin reaches for the remote control almost instinctively, but Jonghyun protests immediately and says, “No, let’s watch it together.”

Everyone is dressed in sparkly electric blue tracksuits, which frankly don’t do anything for anyone’s complexion. There’s a short interview segment just before the performance, during which Minho has the gall to introduce himself as “Dream Team’s shining Minho” and wink at the camera. Jonghyun’s grip on his chopsticks is so tight that Kibum is worried they might break.

“Wow, they’re really good,” Jinki exclaims later, eyes glued to the television while Minho executes a triple backflip over a path of bricks. “I didn’t know Minho could do that.”

The song they’re performing is, for lack of a better description, seriously stupid. There’s a lot of manly yelling and chanting and machismo, and Kibum starts laughing when someone sings the line “You wanna see the winner, we gotta you so excited” with the worst English pronunciation he’s ever heard. He promptly stops when Jonghyun glares at him.

“But it’s so funny,” he says defensively.

The song ends, and the group members arrange themselves into a shaky three-tier human pyramid. There’s an awful lot of cheering from the audience, who have, apparently, already made up a variety of fanchants.

“Uhm, well,” says Jinki, “I guess I’d give it a 5.7 out of 10?” Nobody responds.

“Key-hyung,” Taemin says meekly amidst all the silence. “The jajangmyeon today is really good.”

“Of course,” Kibum says, preening.

 

 

 

Sometimes Jinki worries himself to sleep. He can’t help it; worrying is what a leader is supposed to do, right? So he worries all the time about Jonghyun singing too much, worries about Kibum eating too little, worries about how Taemin is coping with so much work and so much, you know, school at the same time.

But lately all his worries have been concentrated on Minho and how he’s doing, living so far away from the four of them for such a long time, and with a bunch of people he’s spent a cumulative total of – at the most, Jinki estimates – two weeks’ worth of time. Minho hasn’t called back in a week already, and the last time he’d actually called he was so busy with goodness knows what, it lasted only thirty seconds. (It was probably also because Jonghyun had snatched the phone out of Jinki’s hand mid-conversation and promptly asked Minho very scathingly if he was enjoying all the time spent with his darling hyungs, but never mind that.)

So one night at two a.m. he’s staring at the screen of his cell phone, wondering if Minho is still angry (if he were insulted to begin with) and if he should text Minho, because that’s what all good hyungs are supposed to do, right? Support their dongsaengs?

“Minho ah,” he types. “Have you been eating well?”

“I’m sorry Jonghyunnie was so rude,” he adds.

He waits for half an hour; there is no reply. He waves his cell phone around in the dark, wondering if it’s because the signal is dead, and wakes Kibum with the bright light emanating from the screen.

“Hyung,” Kibum tells him in a tone of voice threatening death, “why don’t you just go to sleep.”

“Oh,” says Jinki sadly. “Okay.”

 

 

 

Jonghyun is at the recording studio one day when he spots Minho and his new bandmates walking in his direction. At first he thinks of lowering his cap and avoiding all eye contact until they’ve crossed paths, but then some defiant part of him thinks, _why should I?_ So he walks on forward and gives the group his most withering glare, trying to channel Kibum to the best of his abilities.

Someone mumbles something in Minho’s ear (look how attentive and responsive he is, the creep) and the rest of the group walks off without Minho, who is left staring awkwardly at Jonghyun.

“Hi,” Minho grins.

“What,” replies Jonghyun.

“How have you guys been doing?” Minho asks him.

“Life is great without you,” Jonghyun deadpans. “Don’t you even dare to come back.” Minho looks at him a little sadly, reaches for his hand, and pats it gently as if Jonghyun were an angry girlfriend. This, Jonghyun thinks, is totally one of the times when he wishes he were an inch or two taller.

“Don’t be sad, Jonghyun-hyung,” he says, his stupid bug eyes brimming with sincerity. “I’ll always be here for you if you need me.” He then gives Jonghyun a mock salute and saunters down the corridor.

Jonghyun watches him go for a couple of seconds.

“Don’t think you can win me over with that,” he yells at Minho’s retreating figure.

 

 

 

Life at the dorm is slightly more insufferable without Minho around. Minho has always been a stabilising presence amongst the five of them, even though he’s prone to his own outbursts sometimes. So when he moves out Jinki becomes that much more fretful because there’s no Minho to sit down and listen to him ramble, and Kibum becomes that much more histrionic because there’s no Minho to tell him that he still looks pretty. Most annoyingly of all, Jonghyun becomes that much louder because there’s no Minho to beat him at PES 2010 and tell him to shut up. It’s really difficult to finish your homework when Jonghyun is standing beside you, jabbering about how he managed to score five goals in one game, one of which was a beautiful, curving volley from his own half. Hey, Taemin-ah, want to play with me? You can be Torres if you want.

Taemin decides that he really misses Minho. He calls Minho one afternoon.

“Hello,” Taemin begins. “Minho-hyung?”

“Hey, Taeminnie,” replies Minho over the crackling static.

“Minho-hyung, where are you?”

“Oh,” says Minho, “We’re at Namsan right now. We’re doing this hiking shoot thing, and there’s loads of equipment around and it’s interfering with the reception, so actually I can’t hear you that well. Taemin-ah, why don’t I call you back some time later? We’re really busy with this, sorry, okay? I’m gonna hang up now, you can talk to me tonight, bye.”

Taemin can’t decide if he should be understanding or affronted. He goes with affronted.

 

 

 

There’s a recording for a special holiday program one morning, and because SHINee is under contractual obligation to perform at any event their company wishes them to, they wake up, as per usual on a day like this, at four thirty in the morning so they can get to the studio by six thirty, get their hair and makeup done by seven thirty, and start taping at around eight. Of course Minho and his new band are going to be there, performing stunts and everything, because they’re the hot new in thing in the industry despite having promoted for only two weeks, and despite having absolutely zero chemistry whatsoever when put together, except when doing pole vaults and competing in 4 x 100m baton relays.

They bump into several members of 2PM, who are loitering around the dressing rooms despite not being on the list of scheduled performers.

“You’re here,” Kibum asks incredulously, “to support Minho?”

“Yeah,” Nichkhun says, grinning. Then he tilts his head to the right and says, very slowly, looking at the ceiling, “Well, of course, we’re here to support Junho too … right?”

“Right,” says Junsu immediately.

“You guys are so nice,” remarks Jinki.

“The world is against us,” Jonghyun shouts, throwing his hands up in the air.

 

 

 

And of course Minho is asked to join SHINee for a separate performance on short notice, since they’re all there anyway, and Jonghyun hisses to their manager, “We should do Replay,” and everyone knows it’s because Minho has the least screen time during that song, and Taemin, for some reason, inexplicably _agrees_ with him, which makes Kibum almost throw a bitch fit because who corrupted my son and made him decidedly not-nice, it had to be you, right, Jjong? And because the stylist noonas were not prepared for this strange joint performance that popped out of nowhere, Minho has to go on stage, looking severely out of place wearing his stupid tracksuit and running shoes, and Jinki (Kibum too, albeit very reluctantly) try to salvage the situation by raiding whatever’s left in the dressing rooms in order to find something that fits Minho’s freakishly tall frame, and luckily they do find a shirt that’s passable, but that doesn’t even matter because halfway through the song Jonghyun deliberately takes a step in the wrong direction and bumps into Minho – hard – who falls over immediately, and thank god he is not injured or anything because Jinki is sure hell would have broken loose if Minho pulled his calf muscle again, and from the next room the sound of Kibum wailing at Jonghyun can be heard. “Are you dumb,” he yells, “you just made all of us look like sore losers.”

 

 

 

Half the ride back to the dorm is fraught with silence. Their manager, having decided that there needs to be some kind of heart-to-heart talk among all the members, manages to get permission for Minho to go back for a couple of days. Of course, it’s not going to work if no one’s actually going to attempt to talk to him, except for when Jinki makes Jonghyun apologise, and Jonghyun does so, albeit very grudgingly and insisting that it wasn’t on purpose, the truth of which is absolutely transparent to everyone.

Then there’s utter silence for half an hour, during which everyone busies themselves with their iPods. Minho wonders if he should say something, but figures that it’d be better to let everyone start fawning over him and telling him how much they missed him when they could no longer hold back.

Surprisingly, Kibum is the first to speak up, narrowing his eyes at Minho. “So, I bet you’ve been enjoying yourself all this while, huh?”

“Mm,” says Minho noncommittally.

“You look positively flabby,” Kibum complains. “What have you been eating all this while, instant ramyun? I bet there’s not a single soul over there who knows how to cook.”

“Yes, yes, none of them cooks as well as you do,” says Minho, trying to placate him.

“It was awful having no help with homework,” Taemin whines. “And Jonghyun-hyung was going nuts without anybody playing video games with him, he bothered me all the time.”

Jonghyun whips around to give Taemin a stare that yells _Traitor!_ , and balefully says, “Just so you know, I broke your record on Mario Kart. And don’t even think of getting back your copy of Assassin’s Creed, it’s mine now.”

“You can have it if you like it so much,” Minho tells him lazily, and derives some pleasure from watching Jonghyun turn red.

“Let’s watch a movie together tonight,” Jinki says cheerfully. “I rented 500 Days of Summer. You like Zooey Deschanel right, Minho?”

“Dibs on the couch,” yells Jonghyun.

“I’ll make chocolate popcorn,” Kibum announces. “I got a really good recipe off the internet.”

“Hyung,” Taemin says, beaming, “I’m really glad you’re back. You’ve got to teach me about vectors, I’m totally confused.”

Minho nods. After all, he can’t help it if he’s so popular.


End file.
